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mollywheezyIn our first house, I made a wreath for our front door. It was huge, covering the width of the door, a circular styrofoam wreath swathed in purple bunting and ending with a gigantic bow with multi-colored tulips stuck in under the ribbon. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture, but it was bright and fun and I loved it. My husband Arthur thought it was a bit too big and a bit too bright, but since it was outside, he didn’t mind. My mom came to visit, saw my wreath, and said, “Who gave you that God-awful hideous thing on your door?! And do they visit often enough that you have to keep it hanging up?!” I responded, “I made it, Mom.” She just said, “Oh.” I didn’t care if my mom liked my wreath or not. I was proud of it. In our second house, we had a storm door, and my wreath didn’t fit between the door and the storm door. I tried hanging it on our back door inside, but then the door wouldn’t open all the way, which irked Arthur. I couldn’t hang it inside on the front door because the front door was metal, and if I used an over the door wreath hanger, the front door wouldn’t close properly. Remembering my mom’s reaction, I didn’t feel comfortable gifting my wreath to someone, so I put it into our church’s yard sale to raise money for local missions and it sold!
My mom has always been impeccable in all things. She dresses flawlessly, never has a hair out of place, and used to work as an interior decorator. She loathes clutter and lack of organization. My dad and I were always her complete opposites. We have never cared what we looked like or what we wore as long as we were clean and our clothes were comfortable. My mom always pretty much dressed both of us, since she cared enough for all of us what we looked like. I know my mom wanted a little princess for a daughter and what she got was my tomboy self. As a little girl my mom wanted to put me in frilly dresses with smocked bodices and multiple petticoats. I would wear them, but I would also play in the dirt in them. My grandma sewed jingle bells into the petticoats which made them more acceptable to me since the sound annoyed my mom and amused my dad.
My mom left my dad and I alone for a weekend when I was eight so she could participate in an out of state art sale. It was a wonderful weekend! My dad rented Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back on VHS to watch on our VCR that we had purchased only a few months before and then took me to see Return of the Jedi in the theater. My mom had decreed I was too young to see the first two movies in the theater. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and got to put onions on them! My dad and I both loved onions but my mom hated them. When she came home, I don’t remember her exact words but her first comment to me regarded the fact that I was wearing the same clothes as when she left! She was horrified.
My mom took me to get a mother/daughter makeover when I was ten and insisted I wear the makeup she bought for me. I was never good at it, though. I really wanted the extra fifteen minutes of sleep I could get rather than wearing makeup. The worst thing I remember was getting ready to go on a date at age seventeen and my mom said, “You have hairs out of place!” and proceeded to pull them out.
The first time my mom saw my office, she said, “You are just like your father.” That is a very true statement even though she meant it in a derogatory way. My dad and I never had a filing system. We had a Piling system, but we knew what was in every pile and could find what we needed as long as nobody messed with our piles!
When my mom had a stroke in 2017, I flew to Missouri from Alabama to help my dad, who needed more help than I had realized. My mom had been covering for him more and had not let on. He needed help getting dressed so articles of clothing did not end up being worn inside out or backwards. I always managed to have both of us clean and mostly presentable when we visited my mom in the hospital, except one day he was wearing her slacks which she complained about. I thought they were unisex looking and didn’t see the point in making him change. Another day, my dad was dressed before I showed up to help and his undershirt was inside out and backwards, but it didn’t bother me. Of course, my mom, whose vision had been damaged by the stroke, managed to see the tag in the front and cried in dismay, “Molly Elizabeth! Can’t you even dress your father properly!?” To her shock, I responded, “No, I can’t.” I can’t even dress myself properly some days. I’m so absent-minded, I once wore my house slippers to a Board of Directors meeting. At least they were my black house slippers and not my Tribbles, and thankfully nobody noticed. When I was helping at church and wore one blue shoe and one black shoe, everyone noticed but, unlike my mom, didn’t mind.
When I left home at eighteen, I quit wearing makeup, exchanged contacts for glasses with funky, bright colored frames (my current glasses are purple with orange polka dots–very Weasley Wizard Wheezes-esque), and didn’t wear a dress for nearly two decades. I found out there were people who would like me for being my quirky, eccentric, geeky self. I married one of them. Arthur is a little more reserved and well put together than I am, but lets me be me. When we started ballroom dancing together, I became a bit more conscious of my appearance when surrounded by full-length mirrors every day. One day when I met Arthur at dance class, he glanced at me and whispered, “Did you get dressed in the dark?” I glanced in the wall of mirrors and responded, “I guess I did” and laughed. I did discover dresses again. It’s fun to have a full skirt twirl around my knees when I spin, and as a bonus, I can put on one thing and match!
Although Arthur is a fellow geek, he would not let me decorate the master bathroom of our third house in Doctor Who merchandise because he said it wasn’t restful. How is an exploding T.A.R.D.I.S. bathmat not restful? And he vetoed the Star Wars kitchen remodel because the reviews on the products I wanted to buy, such as a Darth Vader toaster, said the products didn’t work as well as traditional models and didn’t last as long. I did manage to sneak some Star Wars into the kitchen, though.
Arthur does join me in proclaiming our geek pride, though. It was his idea to hang our geeky sign in the family room rather than in our bedroom where I was going to put it. We had to explain every line of the sign to my mom. My dad would have understood it but never had a chance to see it.
We also display our collection of frogs in the family room. The ballroom dancing frogs were a gift from my mother last Christmas, and Arthur said it was his favorite gift from her ever. For years, she had a bad habit of buying us things she thought we should want rather than things we actually wanted. I’m glad she got over that and realized we want very different things than she does.
I do have my own areas of the house to decorate as I will. I have my wall of fun in the laundry room, which I created with items that had been in my office. It was something positive to do after being fired rather than continue to stare at the box of things from my former desk as they sat forlornly in the family room.
The library is entirely my domain to do with as I please, especially since with the pandemic and Arthur’s working at home, our office became his office. Many of my stuffed animals live on a shelf my grandpa made. He originally designed it to hold my mom’s Christmas plates, but she didn’t have a space in her apartment to hang the shelf so gave it to me. She was rather horrified I use it for stuffed animals but just rolled her eyes at me.
From left to right, top shelf: Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit (I wasn’t very inventive as a small child), Cluck, Agatha Ostrich (named after Agatha Christie and a gift from Arthur when we were dating), Max (named after the dog on “Jake and the Fatman” and a gift from my grandma on what turned out to be her last Christmas. We both loved that show.) and Snuffles, a gift from the daughter of one of my hospice patients. Bottom shelf: Rainbow (he goes with the book The Rainbow Fish), Flutterby, Firecracker, Cockle and Doodle, Hoot, Usagichan (Japanese for Bunny), Mr. Waddle, Battington Bear (made for me by a quilter friend) and Harvey (named for the play)
I had to take my mom to buy shoes recently since the tread on hers was worn out and I worried she would fall. My mom uses a walker and, although her vision has improved dramatically since her stroke, she still does not see well. Taking her shopping is an ordeal, exacerbated by the fact that she loves shopping and I don’t. Our shoe shopping excursion was as long as a work day and we went to three different stores in three parts of town, but she found three pairs of shoes. She debated if she wanted three pairs of shoes, so I offered to buy her one pair for her birthday gift from me. She was delighted. So was I since it meant we accomplished our mission and could leave the store. As I was driving her back to her apartment, she asked me, “You don’t like shopping, do you?” I said, “No. I did not inherit the shopping gene you have.” She thanked me profusely for taking her.
Y’all might have noticed back in the frog photo there is also a duck. I am currently singing in my head, “Which one of these things is not like the other?” The duck was also a Christmas present from my mom as a tip of the hat to Ducky a.k.a. Dr. Mallard, a character on NCIS whom both of us like. I may not actually need a duck figurine but do appreciate my mom’s trying to find common ground with me. She still loathes clutter while my home has a very lived-in look, she is OCD while I am the anti-OCD, and she still dresses to the nines, while I still don’t care about my appearance beyond being clean and well-groomed. We have found common ground with the actor David McCallum who portrays Ducky, and as another Christmas gift to me, my mom, with Arthur’s help, bought me the entire series of The Man from U.N.C.L.E on Amazon streaming, so our new Sunday afternoon activity for the three of us is watching a couple of episodes, which all three of us enjoy.
My mom has always been impeccable in all things. She dresses flawlessly, never has a hair out of place, and used to work as an interior decorator. She loathes clutter and lack of organization. My dad and I were always her complete opposites. We have never cared what we looked like or what we wore as long as we were clean and our clothes were comfortable. My mom always pretty much dressed both of us, since she cared enough for all of us what we looked like. I know my mom wanted a little princess for a daughter and what she got was my tomboy self. As a little girl my mom wanted to put me in frilly dresses with smocked bodices and multiple petticoats. I would wear them, but I would also play in the dirt in them. My grandma sewed jingle bells into the petticoats which made them more acceptable to me since the sound annoyed my mom and amused my dad.
My mom left my dad and I alone for a weekend when I was eight so she could participate in an out of state art sale. It was a wonderful weekend! My dad rented Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back on VHS to watch on our VCR that we had purchased only a few months before and then took me to see Return of the Jedi in the theater. My mom had decreed I was too young to see the first two movies in the theater. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and got to put onions on them! My dad and I both loved onions but my mom hated them. When she came home, I don’t remember her exact words but her first comment to me regarded the fact that I was wearing the same clothes as when she left! She was horrified.
My mom took me to get a mother/daughter makeover when I was ten and insisted I wear the makeup she bought for me. I was never good at it, though. I really wanted the extra fifteen minutes of sleep I could get rather than wearing makeup. The worst thing I remember was getting ready to go on a date at age seventeen and my mom said, “You have hairs out of place!” and proceeded to pull them out.
The first time my mom saw my office, she said, “You are just like your father.” That is a very true statement even though she meant it in a derogatory way. My dad and I never had a filing system. We had a Piling system, but we knew what was in every pile and could find what we needed as long as nobody messed with our piles!
When my mom had a stroke in 2017, I flew to Missouri from Alabama to help my dad, who needed more help than I had realized. My mom had been covering for him more and had not let on. He needed help getting dressed so articles of clothing did not end up being worn inside out or backwards. I always managed to have both of us clean and mostly presentable when we visited my mom in the hospital, except one day he was wearing her slacks which she complained about. I thought they were unisex looking and didn’t see the point in making him change. Another day, my dad was dressed before I showed up to help and his undershirt was inside out and backwards, but it didn’t bother me. Of course, my mom, whose vision had been damaged by the stroke, managed to see the tag in the front and cried in dismay, “Molly Elizabeth! Can’t you even dress your father properly!?” To her shock, I responded, “No, I can’t.” I can’t even dress myself properly some days. I’m so absent-minded, I once wore my house slippers to a Board of Directors meeting. At least they were my black house slippers and not my Tribbles, and thankfully nobody noticed. When I was helping at church and wore one blue shoe and one black shoe, everyone noticed but, unlike my mom, didn’t mind.
When I left home at eighteen, I quit wearing makeup, exchanged contacts for glasses with funky, bright colored frames (my current glasses are purple with orange polka dots–very Weasley Wizard Wheezes-esque), and didn’t wear a dress for nearly two decades. I found out there were people who would like me for being my quirky, eccentric, geeky self. I married one of them. Arthur is a little more reserved and well put together than I am, but lets me be me. When we started ballroom dancing together, I became a bit more conscious of my appearance when surrounded by full-length mirrors every day. One day when I met Arthur at dance class, he glanced at me and whispered, “Did you get dressed in the dark?” I glanced in the wall of mirrors and responded, “I guess I did” and laughed. I did discover dresses again. It’s fun to have a full skirt twirl around my knees when I spin, and as a bonus, I can put on one thing and match!
Although Arthur is a fellow geek, he would not let me decorate the master bathroom of our third house in Doctor Who merchandise because he said it wasn’t restful. How is an exploding T.A.R.D.I.S. bathmat not restful? And he vetoed the Star Wars kitchen remodel because the reviews on the products I wanted to buy, such as a Darth Vader toaster, said the products didn’t work as well as traditional models and didn’t last as long. I did manage to sneak some Star Wars into the kitchen, though.
Arthur does join me in proclaiming our geek pride, though. It was his idea to hang our geeky sign in the family room rather than in our bedroom where I was going to put it. We had to explain every line of the sign to my mom. My dad would have understood it but never had a chance to see it.
We also display our collection of frogs in the family room. The ballroom dancing frogs were a gift from my mother last Christmas, and Arthur said it was his favorite gift from her ever. For years, she had a bad habit of buying us things she thought we should want rather than things we actually wanted. I’m glad she got over that and realized we want very different things than she does.
I do have my own areas of the house to decorate as I will. I have my wall of fun in the laundry room, which I created with items that had been in my office. It was something positive to do after being fired rather than continue to stare at the box of things from my former desk as they sat forlornly in the family room.
The library is entirely my domain to do with as I please, especially since with the pandemic and Arthur’s working at home, our office became his office. Many of my stuffed animals live on a shelf my grandpa made. He originally designed it to hold my mom’s Christmas plates, but she didn’t have a space in her apartment to hang the shelf so gave it to me. She was rather horrified I use it for stuffed animals but just rolled her eyes at me.
From left to right, top shelf: Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit (I wasn’t very inventive as a small child), Cluck, Agatha Ostrich (named after Agatha Christie and a gift from Arthur when we were dating), Max (named after the dog on “Jake and the Fatman” and a gift from my grandma on what turned out to be her last Christmas. We both loved that show.) and Snuffles, a gift from the daughter of one of my hospice patients. Bottom shelf: Rainbow (he goes with the book The Rainbow Fish), Flutterby, Firecracker, Cockle and Doodle, Hoot, Usagichan (Japanese for Bunny), Mr. Waddle, Battington Bear (made for me by a quilter friend) and Harvey (named for the play)
I had to take my mom to buy shoes recently since the tread on hers was worn out and I worried she would fall. My mom uses a walker and, although her vision has improved dramatically since her stroke, she still does not see well. Taking her shopping is an ordeal, exacerbated by the fact that she loves shopping and I don’t. Our shoe shopping excursion was as long as a work day and we went to three different stores in three parts of town, but she found three pairs of shoes. She debated if she wanted three pairs of shoes, so I offered to buy her one pair for her birthday gift from me. She was delighted. So was I since it meant we accomplished our mission and could leave the store. As I was driving her back to her apartment, she asked me, “You don’t like shopping, do you?” I said, “No. I did not inherit the shopping gene you have.” She thanked me profusely for taking her.
Y’all might have noticed back in the frog photo there is also a duck. I am currently singing in my head, “Which one of these things is not like the other?” The duck was also a Christmas present from my mom as a tip of the hat to Ducky a.k.a. Dr. Mallard, a character on NCIS whom both of us like. I may not actually need a duck figurine but do appreciate my mom’s trying to find common ground with me. She still loathes clutter while my home has a very lived-in look, she is OCD while I am the anti-OCD, and she still dresses to the nines, while I still don’t care about my appearance beyond being clean and well-groomed. We have found common ground with the actor David McCallum who portrays Ducky, and as another Christmas gift to me, my mom, with Arthur’s help, bought me the entire series of The Man from U.N.C.L.E on Amazon streaming, so our new Sunday afternoon activity for the three of us is watching a couple of episodes, which all three of us enjoy.
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Date: 2022-09-03 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2022-09-03 06:53 pm (UTC)I love Star Wars and Dr. Who. There is this amazing place in NC called: https://www.facebook.com/Geeksboro/
It apparently is gone :( Anyways, it was called Geeksboro coffee shop and it was amazing. My son and I LOVED it!
I mean, read this description. Don't you think our town would love a place like this:
Geeksboro offers a full service gourmet coffee bar that serves Krankies Coffee from Winston-Salem, glass bottled sodas made with pure cane sugar, and pastries sourced from local bakeries (including vegan and gluten free options). On it’s ground floor, Geeksboro features a boutique cinema that specializes in independent, foreign, and documentary films as well as classic movies and popular TV series. Geeksboro also serves a full line of craft beers from the Carolinas and Appalachian Mountains.
Are video games your thing? Geeksboro hosts weekly video game tournaments every Saturday, plus video games are available to be played at any time. What about board games? Geeksboro’s now legendary board games night takes place every Friday night, giving patrons a chance to play everything from Settlers of Catan to Telestrations free of charge. Geeksboro also hosts TOTALLY RAD TRIVIA! on the second and fourth Thursday of each month.
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Date: 2022-09-03 08:16 pm (UTC)Have you ever eaten at Toy Box Bistro? Not quite the same but it's fun, too. :)
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Date: 2022-09-04 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 12:24 pm (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 2022-09-06 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 05:57 pm (UTC)Also, I do enjoy your figurines, especially the ballroom frogs!
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Date: 2022-09-06 02:37 pm (UTC)Thanks! We like them, too! And the ballroom frogs are even more fun since we have a picture of my husband and I in that same dance pose. ;)
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Date: 2022-09-04 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 02:26 am (UTC)My mum was kind of the opposite of yours. She was not a makeup person at all, unless there was some fancy event she was supposed to get dressed up for, so I guess I wound up taking after her once I decided modelling wasn't for me (I took a couple of classes after school when I was younger).
I love your memory of your weekend with your dad watching Star Wars and getting to do things your mom wasn't as into.
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Date: 2022-09-06 02:43 pm (UTC)I was absent the day most of the girly genes were handed out . . . ;)
Thanks! I do, too. :)
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Date: 2022-09-09 01:42 pm (UTC)